Artistic Director
Michael McGaghie

Michael McGaghie joined the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble as Artistic Director in 2018. As Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Macalester College (St. Paul, MN), he conducts the Macalester Concert Choir and Chorale and teaches courses in musicianship, music history, and conducting.

A strong advocate for the music of living composers, he has commissioned and premiered new works by Dominick Argento, Jake Runestad, Jocelyn Hagen, Dale Trumbore, Tarik O'Regan, Dominick DiOrio, among others. Regionally, he has served as guest conductor of the Twin Cities chorus Singers in Accord, chorusmaster of the Minnesota Bach Ensemble, and as an ensemble tenor within the Minnesota Beethoven Festival Chorale and The Singers-Minnesota Choral Artists. He also directs the Harvard Glee Club Young Alumni Chorus (Cambridge, MA) and remains active as a clinician throughout the United States and abroad.

Under his direction, the Macalester Concert Choir was selected to perform at the American Choral Directors Association’s 2016 North Central division conference, the choir’s first such invitation in nearly fifty years. He was one of seven American choral conductors selected for the ACDA International Conductors Exchange Program in China, where he taught and conducted at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Fudan University. Having just completed a four-year term as the College/University Repertoire & Resources Chair for ACDA of Minnesota, he was recently elected Treasurer of the National Collegiate Choral Organization.

Dr. McGaghie previously served on the conducting faculties of Harvard University and The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. He holds a BA in chemistry from Harvard College and MM and DMA degrees from Boston University, where he studied with Jameson Marvin and Ann Howard Jones.